"The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" is an American 25-minute live action short film from 1916, which means not only that this is over a century old already, but that it is of course a black-and-white silent movie. We are not getting one of the biggest stars here, Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, maybe Arbuckle and Griffith too, but instead the main character is played by Douglas Fairbanks, a big star in his own right too and Bessie Love, an early Oscar nominee. Other than that, the film offers story-wise what most films had to offer back then: a little romance story line, lots of movement-based comedy if you want to call it that in the sense of slapstick and an antagonist too. Also being in costume and hiding from somebody looking for the character is also used in here on one occasions, nothing too frequent I believe during that time. But the car comedy is (driving in circles here) and police, frequently in a way to show how incompetent they are, in films were pretty common back then as well. Anyway, this is of course all about the comedy and (despite the title) never a mystery movie. But sadly, the comedy is not particularly good or funny. Especially the shenanigans of Fairbanks' character are far from as memorable as the costume may suggest. In addition, the story was so over the top too that it was difficult to understand what was going on most of the time and the film really could have done with considerably more intertitles. The comedy here is mostly scene-focused, which means there is one comedic approach to most individual scenes, but it does not work on a bigger scale of things and the linksbetween scenes feel very vague most of the time. This description fits many silent films from back in the day and it may be among the biggest problems as well for films from back then. This just takes the flow out of the plot and story, and consequently the entire movie as well. So unless you are a really huge silent film fan and Fairbanks film, you may wanna skip this one. It never felt convincing or memorable and I suggest you go for something else instead.
